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Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Sweetest Days of St. Valentine Series: All My Love Valentine Wreath

I know, I know. Just from the title I have all you guys singing Led Zeppelin. Right?! No?! What?!! How is that possible?? Well, for some of you who know what I am talking about read on. For those who don't, what planet have you been living on?

Today, I made a wreath for my front door. I wanted to depart from the one I have used the past few years for two reasons. One, it's tired. Two, it's tired. (wink) I thought of a lot of options, but in the end decided to put this one together using fabric scraps.

Materials

Wreath Form - I used a white grapevine

Assorted Fabric Scraps - Mostly Reds, including burlap

Assorted Buttons for accents

Jute

Scissors, Regular and Pinking Shears

Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks

Letters for a Message

Quilter's Pins

If you have been reading The Homeless Finch for a while, you know that I have an awesome friend who is a decorator. Whenever the firm clears out their fabric samples, she gives them to me! Better me than the trash dump! Yeah Me! I took out an assortment of those fabric sample books that had red shades. You can use whatever fabric, just remember that the largest piece to make the flowers needs to be about 4 X 4 inches square.

I started with a basic wreath form that I have had laying around. I covered it with strips of burlap and topped it off with a gathered strip of gingham fabric that I put a rough satin stitch along the edges.

I then cut three circles out of my fabric, one large, medium and small for the center of the each flower. I took the two largest sized circles and put a running stitch around the middle so I could gather the center. I then took each circle and hot glued them together working from large to small. I then chose a random button from my stash to finish off the flower.

After completing each flower, I worked it onto the wreath affixing it with hot glue. A few of them, I used a quilter's pin to secure them and then hot glue. The pins helped me figure out as I went where I wanted to place the flowers giving me the flexibility to move them before using the hot glue.

I made the leaves by cutting out 4 x 4 inch squares of a green and creme ticking fabric, grabbing the middle like a handkerchief and tying off the ends with a string from the burlap.

I realized at this point, that I needed to bring more of the black and white gingham fabric around the wreath. I ripped several strips of gingham fabric and finished off the edges on my sewing machine using a red thread satin stitch. You don't have to do this, I was just in the mood to finish the edges.

I took the scraps of fabric that I had leftover from the flowers and made ten tiny pennants and strung them on a piece of jute using hot glue. I popped onto my Silhouette Cameo Software and made the letters for the "All My Love" message. I then sent it to my Silhouette which happily cut them out for me on creme colored scrapbook paper. You can use your own letters, chipboard letter or whatever you chose.

Here are the results...

AND....some detail images....

AND...a little vignette...

Stay tuned for another great project in my series

The Sweetest Days of St. Valentine!

If you click this button, it will

take you to the entire series.

Oh! By the way....if you have not idea why I referenced Led Zeppelin at the beginning of this post...perhaps this might help.